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> As developers, IMHO you should always push for open sourcing as much as you can, ideally with a copyleft license and no CLA. Because it is beneficial for you

> As developers, IMHO you should always push for open sourcing as much as you can, ideally with a copyleft license and no CLA. Because it is beneficial for you personally Agree with the rest of your message but this is really dumb and will hurt your career. You need to think about what you’re writing and determine if there is any reason the employer would be supportive of this. Ive been in SWE management for roughly 20 years now and if you get labeled as “the person who wants everything open source”, you get put in a very limiting box. You advertise that your interests aren’t really aligned with the company and you’ll be treated as a mercenary. This seems okay on the surface, but it will exclude you from working on critical business code that would be ridiculous to open source.

namaria 2y ago
Yet all software companies and to a lesser extent the whole economy depend on open source software to function. In my opinion, the toxic attitude is marginalizing developers who see that.
bravetraveler 2y ago
I'll be honest, getting paid is good for my career. What code I specifically get paid to monkey over weighs on it far less. Totally agree with avoiding labeling yourself more generically, but having spent enough time in the sun... I just want shade. I work to get paid, not get acclaim or friends. At a certain point your professional development stops being at work. Being a mercenary is an interesting way to consider that, actually. For yourself, nobody else will. I'm not even a developer. I do SRE which kind of requires I play one while not being on the friendliest terms with the real devs: "oh, that guy again" I guess my point is this: don't subject yourself to whims... but do be amenable. Just not too much. It's easy to become the sucker. Don't accept working on business critical code without business critical pay. It's just a weird way to look at things.
palata 2y ago
> Ive been in SWE management for roughly 20 years now and if you get labeled as “the person who wants everything open source” Not if you do it right. Don't be "the person who complains about stuff not being open source". I believe I have been pretty successful at open sourcing a lot of my code. Sometimes by convincing my management that it was good for the company, sometimes by manipulating them (I guess it would mean I manipulated people in your position :-) ). Not in a way that hurt the company at all: I never open sourced anything where it actually mattered for the company. I see it like this: when given the choice between not open sourcing (no work needed) and open sourcing (some work needed), every rational manager will go for the former ("I don't care about it, so don't wait my resources for it"). I just adapt my narrative to make it sound like it is cheaper to open source, and everybody is happy!
arp242 2y ago
> labeled as “the person who wants everything open source” If you're always banging on about it, then yeah, that will happen. But that is of course a bad idea, because always banging on about any topic is almost always a bad idea in almost any context.

namaria 2y ago

Yet all software companies and to a lesser extent the whole economy depend on open source software to function. In my opinion, the toxic attitude is marginalizing developers who see that.

bravetraveler 2y ago

I'll be honest, getting paid is good for my career. What code I specifically get paid to monkey over weighs on it far less. Totally agree with avoiding labeling yourself more generically, but having spent enough time in the sun... I just want shade. I work to get paid, not get acclaim or friends. At a certain point your professional development stops being at work. Being a mercenary is an interesting way to consider that, actually. For yourself, nobody else will. I'm not even a developer. I do SRE which kind of requires I play one while not being on the friendliest terms with the real devs: "oh, that guy again" I guess my point is this: don't subject yourself to whims... but do be amenable. Just not too much. It's easy to become the sucker. Don't accept working on business critical code without business critical pay. It's just a weird way to look at things.

palata 2y ago

> Ive been in SWE management for roughly 20 years now and if you get labeled as “the person who wants everything open source” Not if you do it right. Don't be "the person who complains about stuff not being open source". I believe I have been pretty successful at open sourcing a lot of my code. Sometimes by convincing my management that it was good for the company, sometimes by manipulating them (I guess it would mean I manipulated people in your position :-) ). Not in a way that hurt the company at all: I never open sourced anything where it actually mattered for the company. I see it like this: when given the choice between not open sourcing (no work needed) and open sourcing (some work needed), every rational manager will go for the former ("I don't care about it, so don't wait my resources for it"). I just adapt my narrative to make it sound like it is cheaper to open source, and everybody is happy!

arp242 2y ago

> labeled as “the person who wants everything open source” If you're always banging on about it, then yeah, that will happen. But that is of course a bad idea, because always banging on about any topic is almost always a bad idea in almost any context.